Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

Va. judge voids state’s same-sex marriage ban, demolishes conservative dogma in the process

Add Virginia to the list. A federal judge last night overturned Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage, saying that marriage is a fundamental right and that withholding it from some infringes upon the due process rights of those denied access to marriage.

U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen, in her decision, dismissed state claims that legalizing same-sex marriage would create a new right, a key component of the anti-marriage-equality argument. And she demolished the patently false and offensive claims that children of same-sex couples are unfit to be parents, calling it an “unconstitutional, hurtful and unfounded presumption that same-sex couples cannot be good parents.”

Allen addressed another key element — that the state’s constitution had been amended by public referendum to define marriage narrowly as being between a man and a woman. That, she said, violates both the Declaration of Independence proclamation that “all men are created equal” and the constitutional responsibility of courts to act when individual rights are under assault — whether that assault comes from laws crafted by the government or by the people themselves.

While ever-vigilant for the wisdom that can come from the voices of our voting public, our courts have never long tolerated the perpetuation of laws rooted in unlawful prejudice. One of the judiciary’s noblest endeavors is to scrutinize laws that emerge from such roots.

When “state law discriminates impermissibly against members of a class in violation of the Equal Protection Clause,” the courts have a responsibility to step in unless the state law is “substantially related to an important governmental objective.” And the effort to limit the rights of same-sex couples is not “an important governmental objective” and, in fact, violates everything we purport to stand for as Americans.

Responses to the ruling on the right have included a call by state Delegate Bob Marshall for Allen to be impeached, but the right has to know this game is all but over. History is moving ahead on this issue without a right wing committed to antigay bigotry. As David S. Cohen and Dahlia Lithwick point out on Slate, there have 18 court rulings since the June 2013 Windsor decision gutted the federal Defense of Marriage Act, a decision that conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said in dissent would open up a floodgate of equality-based claims.

A survey of publicly available opinions shows that in the eight months since Windsor, 18 court decisions have addressed an issue of equality based on sexual orientation. And in those 18 cases, equality has won every single time. In other words, not a single court has agreed with Chief Justice Roberts that Windsor is merely about state versus federal power. Instead, each has used Windsor exactly as Justice Scalia “warned”—as a powerful precedent for equality.

This hasn’t all been about marriage. Twelve decisions have addressed a substantive aspect of marriage equality since Windsor, and equality has won in all 12—with the Virginia decision now joining decisions from Kentucky, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia, and two decisions each in Illinois, New Jersey, and Ohio. But six other cases since Windsor have addressed different aspects of discrimination based on sexual orientation, such as discrimination on juries and employment benefits, and the side of equality has won in all six of those cases as well.

What is striking is not so much the volume, though 18 in nine months is remarkable, but the geography as Virginia joins conservative states like Kentucky, Oklahoma, Utah and West Virginia in the parade.

The momentum is clear, but the right remains a force and many of these decisions will wind their way to the high court. The question is whether Justice Kennedy will backtrack and buy into the state’s rights arguments made by Chief Justice Roberts — an unfortunate and easy out that could stall all of this. The volume of federal and state-level decisions, and the obvious shift in public opinion make that seem unlikely, which goes to show how far we have moved on this issue in so short a period of time.

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The state of marriage equality, graphically speaking

The Wall Street Journal News Graphics team tweeted out this interesting graphic:

There are 17 states that provide full marriage rights to same-sex couples, along with another four that provide some level of rights and benefits. The 17 states represent 36.1 percent of the population and all but one — Maine — are represented in the U.S. Senate by at least one Democrat. Maine is represented by Republican Susan Collins and independent Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats.

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Selling out: Dylan’s car ad and the economics of art

Rolling Stone sent out this tweet a few minutes ago:

Ostensibly, this is in response to the Bob Dylan Super Bowl Chrysler ad, which was long and not particularly interesting. But it also raises an interesting question: What does it mean to “sell out”?
The standard answer is that allowing businesses to use your music to sell product is “selling out,” which is something that Mr. Dylan — one of my musical idols — has been doing for a long time.
Some artists — Bruce Springsteen, some members of The Doors — refuse and I commend them for doing so.

But should we really be critical of artists who turn their music over to the ad industry? The answer, I think, is no. What, after all, are we criticizing exactly? The connection to a product or the act itself? If it is the specific economic transaction, then we need to re-examine exactly how our culture industry works and the deals the artists are forced to make just to have the art they produce reach the public.

Recording artists work with labels, which front them money to record and ultimately take off the top a piece of the money generated when a record is released and sold. The writing of the songs, the recording and mixing of the music, the choice of cover art and even the session players, are viewed as elements in a larger economic transaction. Most of these costs, as I understand it, are borne by the artist — charged against the revenue that comes in before royalties are distributed (please correct me if I am wrong). Once the record is released, the artist goes on tour to promote it — again, on the band/artist’s dime — along with making all the requisite appearances on local radio and local and national television, when possible.

These post-recording efforts are lumped under the category of promotion — writers and filmmakers do this, as well — and is generally viewed as part of the business model for producers of popular art.

And, yes, it is a business model — which brings me back to the question of the use of songs in advertising or the artists themselves in ads. The critics of the practice view this as inherently different, as somehow more unseemly than the various economic transactions that occur during the recording and promotions process. Asking artists to sell themselves out to record companies is OK, according to this line of logic, but making a few dollars by hawking Victoria Secret panties, as Dylan did a decade ago, is not. (And, really, how is Dylan appearing in an ad for underwear or cars any different than Matthew McConaugheyand Scarlett Johansen doing the same, or Martin Scorcese appearing in ads for credit cards and so on.)

I’m not saying that there is no difference. Rather, what I am saying is that the difference is not as great as we choose to believe, that the issue isn’t the use of the music in ads but in our decision to subject everything we do in our society to market principles. We have turned everything — including our high and popular arts — into commodities. Lady Gaga’s latest single — of Bruce’s or the Dum Dum Girls’ — are no different under our economic model than a can of Starkist Tuna, a Twinkie or the Edsel. The success of all of these ventures is judged on their sales figures — as bands who have been dropped from major labels because of slow sales know all too well. If the artist needs to license his or her music to make money, who am I to stop them?

Is this right? No. I do believe there is something inherently different about art, that it should not be treated purely as another object for profit. But until we move away from the current system of art-as-commodity — and not only art, but health care and other social needs — we should be careful about leveling charges against musical artists for using what we tell them is a salable item to make themselves a few extra dollars.

Basically, by ensuring that art remains a commodity no different in the marketplace than soap, we are the ones who have sold out our artists. They are not the ones selling out.

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The cult of the savvy

Jay Rosen offers a compelling dissection of the political-junkie school of political journalism, which he describes derisively as “the cult of the savvy,” or an “ideology and political style” that “severs any lingering solidarity between journalists as the providers of information, and voters as decision-makers in need of it.”

This kind of journalism, as he makes clear, is about power relations and the kind of winner-and-lower coverage that focuses on whether Chris Christie will still be able to run for president in 2016, rather than on the impact that alleged misuse of Sandy relief money might have on the people who live in areas badly damaged by the 2012 hurricane.

The impact of this kind of journalism, as Rosen says, is the disempowerment of voters. The “savvy in the press”

Cultivate the political junkies. Dismiss and ridicule the activists, the “partisans.” Assess the tactics by which the masters of the game struggle to win. Turn the voters into an object, the behavior of which is subject to a kind of law that savvy journalists feel entitled to write.

Voters should be subjects (the doer of the action) rather than objects (which receive the action), and politics should not be a game. There are too many real consequences at stake.

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